Linger
by scullyseviltwin
Summary: To go from past to future, sometimes you have to linger in the present. FINAL CHAPTER UP.
1. Chapter 1

_Thanks Kirsten for the beta.

* * *

_ Lunch was lunch even when it was eaten at three o'clock in the morning. As long as it was the meal eaten between breakfast and dinner, it was lunch. That was the meal that Warrick Brown was about to indulge in as he stood in front of the microwave.

He seemed transfixed by the burrito circling slowly inside of the machine, illuminated by friendly yellow light. There was a vacancy in his gaze that Gil Grissom, entering the room to retrieve a mug of tea, noticed almost immediately. While adding sugar to the hot water, he gazed over and assessed the man's posture – slumped. Grissom had noted the lack of enthusiasm the CSI had exuded in the past few weeks and while it didn't trouble him, it did interest him.

If Grissom was the type of person to become overtly worried, he might have asked Warrick what was wrong.

"Warrick, is something wrong?" the older man asked delicately, inwardly cursing the part of him that had vowed to 'try more' as of late. The tea bag slipped out of his fingers and into the mug; the two men watched it bob up and down for a moment before glancing at each other.

Once having made eye contact they both shrugged and took a step away, an uncomfortable silence settling in-between them. Talking to someone wasn't easy; talking to Grissom was downright hard. The fact that he had offered in the first place was enough to throw Warrick off his game for a few moments.

Eyes now focused on the floor, neither one of them said a thing before the whiny 'beep, beep, beep' of the microwave startled them.

Some of the tea sloshed over the rim of the mug and landed on Grissom's shoe, seemingly spurring him to speak. "Well, if you need someone to speak with..." but he left it at that.

Warrick nodded slowly and reached for his sloppy burrito. Just as Grissom was posed to turn away, Warrick took his food and threw it down onto the plate hard, beans and melted cheese oozing out from the edges. "I'm, I'm sorry man, it's just that... Tina..."

Grissom cleared his throat and slid into a seat at the table, Warrick following behind him. He sat down across the table from his boss and stared at the mess of meat and tortilla on his plate. Twisting his mouth into a disgusted scowl, he sent the plate skittering across the table until it came to rest just in front of Grissom's newspaper, causing his eyebrows to test the bounds of his forehead. "You know, I never thought this whole marriage deal would be easy but..."

Grissom didn't know if it was even possible for a fifty-year-old man to successfully complete a fidget, but at that comment he did – squirming just a bit in his chair. "Warrick, marital problems are common, especially in the first few –"

"I think she's cheating on me," Warrick said suddenly, vehemently, avoiding his supervisor's gaze; finding it much easier to focus upon the cool blue of the table rather than the lost eyes of Grissom. "And it's not like this is a sudden thing... it's how she looks at him." Warrick glanced up for a moment before adding, "And vice versa."

Grissom placed his beverage on the table and sat back in the chair, giving himself a moment to review the facts that he was sure of. Warrick and Tina had been married for nearly six months, give or take. After thinking about it, he admitted to himself that what he had said about newlyweds wasn't entirely true; the first few months were generally the easiest. Then again, Warrick had only known Tina for a few months before they'd tied the knot, so that may have had something to do with it, Grissom thought. From what he had gathered from overhearing his co-workers speak on the matter, Tina was a nurse, very pretty (as Greg was sure to point out), very friendly, attentive and intelligent.

Overall, she seemed, to Grissom, to be a woman that a man would be lucky to marry, but this was all gathered without ever actually having met her. That wasn't a very good body of evidence to rely on, Grissom thought to himself. "I take it you mean that there's another man in the equation," Grissom surmised, folding his hands on the table to keep them from toying with the edges of the newspaper.

Warrick blinked, his eyes carrying a sort of sadness that Grissom hadn't seen in awhile, and it puzzled him. "There's a man that she works with, a doctor. They used to date... she's been, I don't know." As an afterthought, he added quietly, "Doctor Curry."

Grissom nodded and waited for him to continue, partly because he didn't want to push him, but also because he truly didn't know what to say. "She's been going out with friends a lot more, coming home late... she keeps getting calls and having to take them into the other room." Warrick paused and rubbed his temples, hard. "I don't want to be that guy, you know?"

The older man nodded, "I understand," Grissom said, his voice low and patient. Then it turned rather wistful as he said, "But you can't help it either." Warrick shook his head, looking up. "Everyone has a jealousy gene Warrick. Everyone."

A sigh filled the space between them and the room went silent again. Just when Grissom was sure that the conversation was over and he was about to get up to leave, Warrick asked in a hushed voice, "Even you?"

Snapping his head up, eyes wide in shock, Grissom opened his mouth to speak. Then, he closed it again, cocked his head and pondered the question. Eventually, he came to the conclusion, "Yes, even me."

"Picture that," Warrick chuckled quietly and brought the goop of a lunch back in front of him with one finger. "This is disgusting," he chuckled again, the comment served to break the tension that had settled over the pair. Grissom nodded and sipped the dregs of his tea, moving back to the sink to make a new cup.

"That it is," he replied absent-mindedly, missing the entrance of Sara Sidle, balancing a thermos of something and a tupperware container with a piece of paper attached to the top.

Warrick voice caught Grissom's attention and he spun around just as she set down the items on the table. "Hey, girl. Whatcha got there?" Sara pushed her hair out of her face and smiled, plopping down in the seat that Grissom had vacated.

"It's not what I've got, it's what you've got," she pointed out and slid him the container whilst frowning at the food on the plate in front of him. "Your blushing bride left these at the front for you." Sara grabbed the thermos and held it up, sniffing at it. "I told her I'd bring it back."

Warrick smiled and peeled the piece of paper from the top of it and then popped the lid off of the tupperware, sending a delicious aroma throughout the break room. "Whoa, lasagna," he exclaimed, a slow grin forming on his face. "The lady can cook," he explained to Sara, who smiled and nodded and sat back in the chair.

"Yeah, it'd been a while since I'd seen her; she invited me to her book club," she mentioned casually, looking over the half-finished crossword puzzle on the table. "Mind if I finish this?" she called over her shoulder to Grissom who uttered a polite 'no', and began fixing her a cup of tea.

Warrick looked up, confused. "Book club?"

"Mmm, Tuesday and Saturday mornings. She said it's with some people from radiology and admitting," Sara said as she picked up the pen on the table and began filling in clues. "They're reading 'Lolita'," she added as an afterthought, scrunching her brow at one of the prompts on the paper.

"Oh," he said, as he opened the sheet of paper and ran his eyes over the words quickly. The smile that was on his face blossomed into a full grown grin, complete with a short burst of laughter. "Yeah, she uh, wants to talk this morning," he said and folded the paper neatly before tucking it into his breast pocket. "Relationships are never easy, right?"

"They shouldn't be," Sara said quickly, in a voice devoid of emotion. "That would take all the fun out of it."

Warrick nodded and gathered his new lunch, appreciative of what Sara had said. "I hear that, I hear that." He left, taking the appealing scent of lasagna with him.

Grissom glanced at Sara, who'd pulled her legs underneath her and begun to attack his puzzle with a vengeance. "This is wrong," she said to him, pointing at the paper. "It's Oman, not Iran," she supplied and scratched out his answer to fill in her own.

Slowly, he walked to stand behind where she was seated and watched her work for a few minutes. Then, he placed the tea down in front of her and she smiled up at him briefly, returning to the puzzle almost immediately. "It's not _supposed_ to be easy?" he questioned, lingering in the doorway.

"Nope. It's not," she replied without looking up.

Grissom nodded, looked both ways down the hall and then back at her. "Stop by my office when you're finished, I'd like you to come somewhere with me."

She would have replied to this with 'anywhere', but she was too busy filling in the little gray boxes with the word 'nowhere', in response to the clue "negation of location, fashionable imperative."

**TBC (Damn you WIPs, why must you taunt my muse so!)**


	2. Chapter 2

_Thanks Nessa for the info, Lindsey for the readthrough and Kirsten, as always for her ZOMG!beta.

* * *

_ "Are you going to go?" he asked quietly once they were seated and buckled in the car. It was still cool out, mostly because of the time; a rare, beautiful kind of time when the temperature tickled the sixties, as if summoning the sun to rise fully in the sky, as if preparing the land for its arrival.

Sara felt the coolness itch her fingertips and ran them hard down the front of her jeans.

"Hmmm?" she asked without actual words, turning towards him with a small, endearing smile on her lips. She was alive and tired and adorable in the crisp morning light. The heat, something that he knew would soon invade, had yet to encroach upon the Strip and he was glad for it.

That meant he didn't have to watch the sweat pearl up on her skin, or hear her breathe just a tad deeper to satisfy her need for clean oxygen.

Grissom licked his lips and though she didn't notice, because she wasn't looking, a tiny, miniscule bead of moisture perched between his upper and lower lips. It was something that had she caught, would have driven her slightly insane.

"The book club, are you going to go?" Grissom asked, pulling slowly out of the lot, turning right onto Tropicana. It felt like an appropriate moment, so he stole a quick glance at her; she was smiling out the window, playing with her fingers.

Sara hummed to herself for a few seconds, her contemplated words coming as sounds against her lips. "Well, I've read Lolita, I hate Nabakov, and I don't know how I'll get along with them," she began. "But then, I don't know how I actually will unless I try," she concluded. Her face was relaxed as she sat forward, resting her weary back against the fabric of the Denali.

"Probably, yeah," she said finally, right hand at the door handle, the other resting on her knee. "Why not try," she trailed off in a manner that was very akin to sadness. But she was still wearing a small smile.

For no reason, he wanted to cry. Trying, an expression so foreign to him, stung his nerve endings as if her words were directed straight at him, as if they were spoken in order to pierce his soul. There was a chance that they were spoken with two intentions: reality and abstraction. The abstraction painted him blue and red, but mostly blue and his lips fell into a straight line.

Sara turned to him; the cliché about feeling someone's gaze on you was so true in his case. His cheek burned with the line of her eyes and it twitched hard, unspoken words rebounding off of it.

He said nothing; minutes, lefts and rights and forward navigation of nothing and she was finally overcome by the stifling atmosphere of silence. "Where are we going?"

"Somewhere," he paused as if for show but really, proper adjectives refused to coalesce in his mouth. "A tourist spot that neither one of us would have considered unless... we went together."

"Excuse me?"

Grissom smiled, a ghost of a thing. "You wouldn't have gone because it would have been too cliché and I..." They stopped at a light and he turned brashly to meet her gaze. "I wouldn't have gone unless someone had convinced me to."

Sara smiled back, her lips only curling slightly. "But I didn't."

They waited until the light slipped into green and he pressed the gas pedal and said, "This is a change." His focus was straight forward but Sara somehow felt that his peripheral was intent on her form. "This is how I'm trying to change."

She wasn't surprised, not overly. Sara simply stared forward, giving a small jerk of her head to offer assent. Other than that, she didn't move, didn't speak. Grissom drove along the Strip, passing the recently closed Stardust, Circus, Circus. "Really, I'm forgoing sleep, where are we going?"

Speeding along happily, Grissom smiled, posed a "You'll see," and kept driving.

Sighing, Sara slid back fully into the seat. After crossing and uncrossing her arms a few times, she gave up. Speaking vehemently, she said, "Look, I want to know where we're headed, because if I don't, I'm not going." A ten-year-old, that's both what she sounded and looked like, a petulant child; for some reason, he found it rather endearing.

So he laughed.

And she glared.

It was perfect. The reactions of both were so perfectly inappropriate that there was nothing to do but settle into another long silence. Moments went by, he drumming on the steering wheel, she humming low and then stopping-starting-stopping-starting again, before he perked up.

"Mandalay Bay."

It took Sara a moment to snap from her Bangles reverie and answer him, "What?"

"We're going to Mandalay Bay."

"Can I ask _why_?"

"Well," Grissom compromised, "Only if you don't like surprises."

The ultimatum hung in the air between them and while she was considering telling him to cut the bullshit, he was pulling into the lot of Mandalay Bay and stepping out of the SUV. Her hands were out before her, as if to say, 'what the hell', and yet before she knew it he was opening the door and reaching inside to take her hand.

Sara didn't bother, just hopped down and bravely met his eyes, arms at her sides so it didn't seem like a standoff. "It's air conditioned inside," he said, glancing at her attire – a thin tank top and black jeans.

And then they both stood there, the chiming rhythm from the open door matching their steady hearts. Finally Grissom broke it, cut into the tempo and said "Here", grabbing a windbreaker from the backseat. He shoved it into her hands, never breaking eye contact.

Tilting her head, she spurred him to walk across the spacious lot, indulging in brief moment when his back was turned to smell his coat. The slight musk made her heart and head smile, her lips remaining unaffected. Together their shoes clicked across the pavement and into the foyer of the lavish casino. She shrugged on the jacket quickly, pretending it had no effect on her, as if for that moment she didn't feel wrapped entirely in Grissom.

Even at ten o'clock in the morning the place was abuzz, old and new yanking down on levels, letting off pleasant renditions of "you won't win" that had them pulling on the lever again. Sara wasn't impressed with the display.

In the cool interior of the smoke-ridden casino, Grissom led her between slot machines, beside poker tables, grabbing her hand at one point so that she would bank left. Her heart didn't leap... so she told herself. Neither did his; he was much better at lying to himself than she was.

When they halted in front of a ticket counter, she nearly slammed into him but managed to catch herself just before her right palm landed on his ass. Looking down at it, she pulled it back, realizing just how close an inch really was. "Two," she heard him say, but just barely; she was tired and far too busy staring at her hand, silently reprimanding it for getting too close.

Then they were trailing into darkness, blue and white coursing out to greet them, a slow stream of surrealistic anticipation. "Sharks," Sara said and glanced around as the wonderful creatures swam by. She was sure there was a sparkle in her eyes, even as she attempted to appear unimpressed.

Once inside the mock temple Sara took her time to look around, reading some of the displays, simply enjoying the colorful display at other points. She would glance over at Grissom from time to time only to catch him turning away from her, as if she'd caught him with his hand in the cookie jar.

They passed through in relative silence, only speaking when one wanted to point something out to the other. It was comfortable… in an anxious sort of way. They walked slowly through the tunnel, above and around which colorful fish swam in peaceful little trajectories.

Before she knew it, Sara was caught up in the motion of the fish, choosing one and following its path until it disappeared from sight. That's why it came as such a shock to her when a large white shark appeared from around a massive wall of coral. Jumping back, just a bit startled, she encountered Grissom's warm chest.

In the split second of contact before she pulled away, his hands were on her hips, holding her there. When they broke apart, she was breathless for a reason that had nothing to do with the appearance of the shark. "We should go," he said as they parted, and Sara just nodded without looking back at him.

She was in front of him the entire way out of the casino. At one point, he nearly had to jog to catch up with her. The sun hit them hard when they burst through the doors and into the parking lot and Sara paused for a moment at the brash onslaught of light.

"Maybe you should stop trying," she posed without prompting, still walking ahead of him, bringing her hands up and down the sleeves of the scratchy forensics windbreaker that was still wrapped around her.

As she slowed, Grissom passed her, a haughty smile tugging his lips.

Grissom shrugged and clicked off the alarm on his vehicle, it beeped happily from across the parking lot; he threw a question over his shoulder, "Are you asking me or telling me?"

"You have no right," she called to him, the voice far too far away to be behind him. She was in the middle of the lot, hands grabbing her biceps, staring at him. "You have no right to play it this loose, not now."

"I don't," he called back, voice full of truth, "But can't I kiss you, after all, this is the end of our first date?" It seemed his confidence had the best of him.

Sara shook her head and dropped her hands in front of her, worrying them. "Hold on," she took and couple of steps forward and then stopped, stunned. "What?"

"Our first date, it's customary to give a –"

"That wasn't a date," she half laughed, half accused, leaning forward to assert her point. Eyes on fire, back rigid, Sara was ready to put up a fight.

For a moment, Grissom reviewed what had happened, looking to sky as he perused the annals of his memory. "Well. I asked you, you came with me, I paid, I'm driving you home," his smile was mischievous when he glanced back down at her. "Yes, that's most certainly a date…"

There was far too much smiling going on for her liking.

Sara stood her ground, her mouth open in astonishment. "No," she asserted. "No, you never told me where we were –"

"Mandalay Bay," he interjected but she continued on, the heat rising and with it the curl in her hair.

She shook her head though there was a sarcastic smile playing on her lips. "Yes, but that was halfway there, and you never let me pay, never gave me the option and now... my car's back at the lab! That's not fair!" By then she was chuckling, throwing her hands about as if to make a statement. "You can't ambush a girl into a date Grissom, not after _everything_."

"I'm trying to make things simple," he growled, moving towards her, reaching out.

Oh, she wanted to step into his embrace. But she didn't; she couldn't. There was no way that his words would win her over, not in that short a time. No, that time had passed.

"Well," she breathed, walking past him haughtily. "Then I'm going to make things hard."


	3. Chapter 3

_VelocityOfSound and DirtyVirgin are both fantastic, classy, awesome women. Me thanks them.

* * *

_ "Aw, baby, why you gotta play me like that?"

Sara threw Warrick a look over her shoulder, grinning as she did. "As they say from time to time: you snooze, you lose."

She tossed the crumbling little cookie into her mouth and then glanced down at the empty tray. "Better luck next time."

Warrick grumbled and tossed his long body onto one of the couches, mock glaring at the woman in the doorway. "I was actually going for lunch, did you want anything?" she offered, perking his eyes from a glare to casual indifference.

"Well, I don't have any cash–just my card," he drew out the last word in such a piteous way that Sara couldn't even bring herself to roll her eyes.

"On me," Sara's sigh sounded forced and so Warrick laughed, "what do you want?"

"Turkey on rye, and don't forget the extra cheese and pickles," his voice trailed off as his eyes slipped shut and he tucked himself into the worn green fabric.

Sara nodded and while she didn't screw up her face in disgust, her lips did twitch into a bit of a frown. However, there was still a distinct spring in her long stride as she left the room because... that cookie had really hit the spot. Gently humming to herself, she made a turn down the corridor to the locker room to retrieve her purse but was halted by a voice calling out behind her.

"Let's get coffee," the voice said, and while she smiled warmly at the wall in front of her, she shook her head slowly.

With a tiny laugh that only she could hear, Sara turned and fixed a slightly withering gaze upon Grissom. "Hm, haven't you heard tea is the new coffee?"

Willing to play along perhaps, or simply unwilling to let the matter drop that easily, Grissom gave an ultimatum, "Let's get tea, then." He followed his statement with a quirky smile, as if to say, 'Your move, toots.'

It seemed that Sara was somehow able to read Grissom's mind and became slightly inflamed at his mental rendering of her as someone who would be called toots. Her voice took on a distinctly snarky tone as she fixed him with a pitiful smile. "Oooooh, I've got plans, sorry." She hissed in through her teeth quickly.

"Plans for what?" he was able to shoot back before she'd managed to spin around and walk away. He felt confused and hurt, but at the same time intrigued and antsy. Grissom knew her response would probably throw him; and instead of preparing himself for it he just waited, waited for her to hit the bulls-eye right in the middle of his chest.

And hit it she did.

She huffed in mock irritation and placed her hands on her hips. "To play hard to get, Grissom." Sara paused and thought for a moment. "And plus, I have to go to the grocery store, I'm all out of coffee." Her tongue came out and teased the side of her mouth before darting back in, taunting him.

The confusion settled into the lines on his face then, aging him a few years, and his lips quivered twice before he was able to speak. "But you just said tea –"

"I'm unpredictable," came her reasoning and she slid away from him again and through the doors to the locker room. Truly, she was a study(,)(;) a rubix cube of a woman whose colors continued to elude his higher reasoning.

Sara could have sworn she'd said checkmate and ended their little game, but moments later, Grissom slid through the doors and appeared beside her. Heat surrounded the both of them and while neither acknowledged it, they both found their combined heat much more comforting than simply that of the other.

She spared him a quick glance to the left and shifted in her shoes.

He smelled... good. He smelled amazing actually; there was a strange scent lingering around the edges of him, something that Sara pegged as expensive cologne. Inside her locker, her hands shook with the array of fantasies that came forth to play at the front of her mind. "Sara..." he rumbled and the images came quicker.

God, that voice, honey on the end of a whip, teasing across her ears so delicately that she nearly asked him to repeat her name, just so that she could hear it again. Instead, she took a deep breath and willed her body back into some semblance of control. "Yes?"

"You're volatile."

A quick little gasp – a runaway thing – escaped her when she realized just how close he was. Forcing a sarcastic smile, Sara slammed her locker shut and stepped away from both it and him. "Since that comment runs the risk of offending me I'm going to save you from the lashes of my anger by taking that as a compliment."

It didn't even seem to chip her hard veneer; he didn't know whether to be pissed or impressed. Sara perked a quick smile and then breezed past him to escape the oppressive silence of the locker room.

Grissom paused for a moment to wrap his head around what was going on. There was something different about her… something intensely different about her.

Her low heels clicked dully down the halls of the labs; Grissom attempted to keep up with her, but it was impossible. It was a power stride, a purposeful pace to get away from him.

He was finally able to reach her, but only with his voice, once they reached the parking lot. The sun was bright but he didn't bother to shield his eyes, choosing instead to watch her form saunter in the light.

"You've been acting strange lately," he called after her, mirth evident in his voice.

For a moment she considered shooting back with, "Well, so are you buddy", but decided against it. Sara spun around and walked backwards; in a flash, she'd plucked her sunglasses from her head and folded them down over her eyes. "Yeah, I'm taking a new multi-vitamin!"

And with that she spun back around and grinned to herself as she walked to her car.

Grissom bounced on the balls of his feet and watched her drive away, thinking one thing to himself as he retreated to the seclusion of the lab: "Game on."


	4. Chapter 4

_Thanks to Kirsten for talking all of this out with me; thanks to Kay for calming me down and pointing me in the right direction.

* * *

_ Even when she was young, amongst the fighting and the bleeding and the crying, Sara found solace in her little corner of the world. She found solace in her books, in between the pages, pretending that she wasn't interested in reading about the beautiful princess being stolen away by the prince to live happily ever after.

She pretended _not_ to think about true love; she pretended that she wasn't absolutely _sure_ that there really was someone out there who would steal her soul away, with just a glance. And as the years went on and she grew to embody not the princess, but her plain stepsister, Sara still clung onto a tiny morsel of hope.

Growing up wasn't easy for her, but when her head would touch her pillow at night, she'd try to imagine him completely oblivious to her. Waiting for her to arrive and change his life.

Her resolve formed and an invisible concrete cast enveloped her body, steeling her to the world. Inside, however, beat her strong heart and further still within was the flighty idea of a perfect love out there, waiting for her.

She was tripped up a couple of times by men who she thought at the time were the one and only, but turned out to be nothing; imposters, lacking the luster that she knew she needed. So there were dates, and there were relationships and there were far too many breakups.

Then there was that snowy Wednesday when she was hit over the head by a two-by-four, skillfully though obliviously carried by a visiting lecturer. Oh the lingering headache that remained for years, itching in her skull as a constant reminder.

So she waited in her tower, in San Francisco, waiting for him to finally come and rescue her; take her away, anywhere as long as it was with him. No, he didn't make her feel like a princess, that wasn't how he made her feel. She was simply a prisoner of her own soul-wracking emotion, hidden away waiting and so wanting. A mad scientist, that's what

he was, that's how he fit into this warped fairy tale. He was the mad scientist, turning a cool eye on the world and her with it.

Another specimen, she was another specimen–something to be studied, some knowledge to be gained from her.

Her tale of true love warped and transformed before her, and there was nothing she could do to halt the simple transformation from fiction to reality. It was so much more beautiful; that strange, harsh realization that she would have to work for what she wanted, that he wouldn't simply sweep her away.

Not simply a passive participant in the game, but real, full, human... a human who had to struggle and claw and fight to grasp exactly what she wanted. And the new Sara, the Sara who'd gone through years of waiting and wanting, who'd seen untold violence and anger... could cope with struggle very well. In fact, she thrived on it, made the most of it.

Instead of pretending to be someone else, someone that a prince might deign to please, Sara could be Sara, and that delighted her the most.

Fear and desire prickled along her spine with every email she sent, putting thought into every word typed onto the screen, making sure the sentences did her true nature justice. Pieces of herself, her soul, her heart were lodged in binary and sent skittering across the internet to be read by him, to be interpreted by him... to be misinterpreted by him.

No more.

After years of such torture, of avoidance and ignorance, her heart kept pumping, kept beating, kept reminding her that this was the one she wouldn't be able to get over. Now that he had come around, had finally realized that sometimes destiny was this easy, he had to prove himself.

And not just by proving himself as a man to a woman, but a man proving to himself that he was ready for what he was asking for.

Yes, he was going to have to scale a few castle walls to get what they both wanted. Thus the flippancy entered as a way to distance herself from the inevitable passion she felt for him and would continue to feel for him. It was working well for her, keeping him on his toes but always coming back for more.

A casual diversionary tactic, to be sure, but one that was safe and able.

Sara thought all of this in the shower, in between shampoo and conditioner, and all in the space of a minute or two. She'd boiled it down, rounded it out, summed it all up. She'd give herself a month, or maybe two, of testing him–of learning him and allowing herself to be learned.

After toweling herself off and securing the damp tendrils of hair at the back of her skull with a clip, she settled down on her bed and began flipping through the pages of a fashion magazine that had been mailed to her apartment by mistake. After a bit, she'd become bored with the glossy images and tossed the magazine aside, flipping onto her back to stare at the ceiling.

Just as she was about to slip into her subconscious once more, there was a quiet knock on the door. Three dull taps, waiting for her acknowledgement.

Straightening her sweatshirt, she made her way to the front door and glanced through the peephole. An apprehensive looking Grissom stood clutching two Styrofoam cups, fidgeting.

With a ghost of a smile gracing her lips, she opened the door, crossed her arms and regarded him coolly. "I know you said no to coffee, so I thought maybe I could bring it to you." When her brow shot up in interest, he was quick to supply, "But it's not coffee, it's tea, some new concoction. Passion tea or something."

"Passion fruit tea," came her correction and her lips curled up just a bit more.

Grissom nodded and quickly glanced behind, down the direction from which he had come. "And you probably don't want to see me, but I thought I'd come and give it a try," he held out one of the cups to her and she took it, her hand shaking just a bit. "I'll go."

Sara shook her head as he was about to turn. "No, come in, I guess."

Stepping aside, she observed Grissom worry the invitation over in his mind. Taking one step inside, he stopped to look at her. She was watching him intently, her lip leaning casually on the edge of the cup, waiting for him to come all the way inside. "Are you going to…"

"Sorry, yes," and with that he moved five steps in and turned to watch Sara close the door behind him. They were left with a dull silence, a vacuum where no sounds could emerge. After they'd both stared their fill, Sara moved to her couch and sat daintily on the edge before settling back fully, allowing her body to conform to the leather.

Grissom took that as a cue and shuffled over to slip onto a chair, cradling the hot tea in between his hands, arms resting on his knees. "Sara, I realize I may have come on a bit strong, initially," came the beginning of his explanation. He didn't stutter or stumble, but spoke clearly and looked at her while he was doing so.

He wasn't embarrassed, wasn't nervous. She was slightly impressed, thrown off balance by his confident demeanor. What's more, she was more than a little enamored by it.

"But I had to get it all out there, all at once. If I were to explain it all to you right now, it would come out completely wrong but…"

She nodded and sipped at the tea, not even flinching when it scorched the roof of her mouth. "I understand. Do you understand why I-"

Grissom's head lifted a bit as if to acknowledge what she was about to say. For a moment, neither spoke, but then he smiled, "Why you're playing hard to get? Yes, that hasn't escaped my notice."

Staring down at the cup in her hands, her lips twitched, attempting to smile back. "And why am I…"

"I deserve it; nothing worth having comes without a struggle, Sara," he reasoned. "And the struggle is half the fun, half the charm–the allure. So… I… just… understand completely."

Grissom sat back in the chair, placing his cup on the table, "I would expect nothing less."

And there it was, the subtle shift from awkward to comfortable, the silence morphing in to envelop instead of burden.

"Do you mind if I just… stay awhile?" he asked casually, voice low and cool.

Sara blinked and cocked her head. "No, I mean yes, you can stay, no, I don't mind."

He nodded. "Good."

They sat there, just sitting, looking at this and that, until their tea was cold and forgotten.


	5. Chapter 5

_Thanks Anni for beta-ing... and hoppy Easter... Peeps for all!

* * *

_ "I'm sorry it took me so long," she said, wiping a smudge of grease from her face, and Grissom couldn't help but wonder why the words he needed to speak were slipping from her tongue.

Sara sniffled, rubbed her nose on the sleeve of her jumpsuit, and tucked the soiled cloth into a pocket. After pressing the hair out of her eyes, she cocked her head to the side and watched on as he contemplated what to say. After a very quiet moment, moving back and forth, dodging out of people's way, he came up with, "No problem."

The smile that bloomed on her lips was quirky and amused, but Sara just shook her head and brushed past him, silently beckoning him to follow. Whether it was her pull or something else, she was delighted when he followed close behind her.

In front of him, she pulled her hair from the loose ponytail and drew her greasy fingers through the strands. He watched it all, mesmerized by the simple movement, watching her tie is all back up into a tiny, messy little ball at the back of her head. God, she was so far from perfect, such a strange concoction of a woman; he'd never been more taken.

It made him smile; god, he really was doing that entirely too much lately. She turned to look at him briefly, but then she pushed the door to the locker room open, pushing her behind her a little in jest. His smile widened as he caught it with a snap of his wrist, the wood thwacking off of his palm quickly.

"So, what are we doing?" Sara asked, pulling a set of clean clothes from her locker, along with a few bottles and a small toiletries bag. Sara waited for him expectantly; the other night after their tea had gone completely cold and she had brewed them two brand new cups, he'd suggested that he take her somewhere. "No pressure," he'd said, "Just a step in the right direction." Grissom hadn't told her what he planned on, simply said that he'd give it some serious thought and had left her apartment, but not before placing their empty mugs in her sink.

For some reason, that thought had stuck with her, and while she didn't fall asleep with the kindness-the thoughtfulness-of the gesture, she did awake to find those two mugs still resting amongst the pots, filled with water.

Sara had quickly washed his and filled it with orange juice (no pulp) and had sat on her back stoop, watching as the sun faded to purple and beyond.

For a second, just one second, Sara wondered what he drank with his breakfast, but then she didn't care. She'd find out if he let her and she wouldn't speculate about it anymore. She would stop dreaming about the what if's, would just take things as they came. Sara had pressed her bare toes against the cold concrete of the steps and stood, her upper body feeling lighter than it had in years.

That weight on her shoulders had really been a bitch.

And she'd dressed with a slight anticipation of what Grissom would come up with.

In the locker room, that anticipation was written all over her features, though she tried to hide it. Grissom knew where to look and how to read her reactions. Her fingers curled a bit tighter around a bottle of shampoo and he tried not to smile.

Succeeding, he tilted his head, swallowed and said, "We... are going... somewhere."

That too made her smile, the way his voice lilted on the 'somewhere', so she just nodded and walked towards the showers. "I'll be ready in thirty, meet you at your car."

Grissom wanted to watch her round the corner to the shower, but couldn't bring himself to do so. Even that simple move was too intimate for him. He'd put himself out there for her in public, but watching her take off to the shower led to thoughts of her getting undressed... thoughts of her getting wet and soapy, and that was no place he wanted to be if he intended to be the perfect gentlemen.

And that, perfect, was what he intended to be. He'd been thrown a bit off of his game with the thoughts he had been having in the past few days. They had been so intense, so jarring, that he had simply gone with them for once and ended up throwing them both off course.

He trailed back to his office and packed up his briefcase, slipping in a few files he'd been meaning to review, and had made his way out to his car to wait for her. The morning sun was just hot enough to turn the interior into a sauna, so he blasted the air conditioning for a bit, and flicked on the radio. Setting it to AM, Grissom sat back, closed his eyes and listened to a banal host discuss last night's baseball highlights.

As soon as the man had begun talking about the National League, there was a dull tapping on the window of the passenger side. Startled, Grissom shot up in his seat and looked over to see Sara, pink and glowing from the shower, trying to balance all of her belongings haphazardly. His finger immediately shot to the 'unlock' button, and he leaned over into the backseat to pop the rear door for her. "Thanks," she mumbled and tossed her duffle as well as a large stack of files, into the back.

Returning to the front, she jumped in, smoothing her pants once she got herself situated. "So," she said, turning to Grissom, catching him watching her with interest. "I ask again, where are we off to?"

Grissom shut of the car and restarted it, the engine humming pleasantly as he pulled out of the parking space. "Would you believe me if I said I had no idea?"

Sara's face fell, "You don't know where we're going?"

Grissom shook his head and brought the car to a stop at an intersection, drumming on the wheel before turning to look at her. "There's a certain freedom to just driving…"

"Well, of course there is, since you don't have to _make a choice._" Sara fought the urge to cross her arms over her chest and huff out an exaggerated sigh. What had she expected, really? He was trying, that much was evident, really putting himself out there. It should have put her at ease that he had absolutely no clue as to what he was doing, because that meant it was new territory for him.

She just couldn't shake the need to have him take the lead, dunk the ball that she had left in his court. Hell, she'd settle for a sloppy lay up at this point. She ignored the metaphor she'd concocted in her mind and released a soft sigh, one that was intended to calm her but did nothing more than agitate him. "Look, I'm sorry," the panic had slid its way into his voice, running beneath his words.

Sara licked her lips, clenched her fists once and said, "You have nothing to be sorry for."

Grissom pulled across the intersection and began driving towards the Strip, eyes just a tad too glassy, jaw set a bit too stiffly. She waited for a moment and saw his hands clench hard on the wheel, knuckles turning white. "Pull over," she instructed softly, and when he simply glanced at her but made to move to signal a turn, she said it again. "Pull over."

They rolled slowly into the parking lot of the World's Largest Souvenir Store, and Grissom threw his vehicle in park, leaning back against the seat to close his eyes. He was sure that this was not something the "perfect gentleman" ever did. God, how could he-

"Listen, Griss… if it's going to be this uncomfortable for you, I never should have-"

He perked up and opened his eyes, but made no move to look at her. "No, I'm sorry, I just have… God, I don't… I don't understand why you're doing this to me." As soon as the words slipped out, he wanted to grab them and shove them right back in. 'That came out so wrong,' he thought, inwardly wincing as his stomach twisted into intricate knots. 'So. Very. Wrong.'

Sara was shocked for a moment, and opened her mouth to speak. No words came out. So she tried again, still nothing. Then, she began slowly, annunciating every word with the utmost care.

"Let's not forget, Grissom... that you offered me a new life. You offered it to me first, so please... don't go on pretending that you had no part in this... that I," she searched for the words and rolled her eyes as she voiced the cliché. "Somehow came and threw it all off balance because you invited me in the first place."

Those words, in that particular order, should have been spoken with some sort of remorse, some sort of anger. But the words that came from her mouth were just forceful and pained, spoken with a sort of depth that only begged for understanding. Grissom knew what she was talking about, knew the second she had opened her mouth. He could still feel the cool table under his fingertips, could remember how the room had looked when he'd spoken those words.

He could remember just how far into himself he had fallen after airing those demons, even though he had thought it would relieve him of some of the guilt. And yet, he couldn't help but ask, "What?"

Sara shook her head and looked out the window. "I never asked you to give up anything. I never wanted you to give up anything."

There was a stillness, and though the sounds of the city bustling about encroached upon the silence in the car, they felt as if they were really the only two people left on the planet who hadn't figured it out. "I just wish it were a little easier," he mumbled and then looked out the window himself. "Not a lot, just a little."

"Well," she reasoned, turning towards him and waiting until he looked at her. "You have to start realizing that you can't displace any of these feelings, any of your emotions… and not just for me, for anyone." He blinked; his mouth twitched. "You have to learn to deal with these things, take them as they come, reason them out… don't hide from them… because then," Sara broke the tension with a smile. "They all catch up to you like this, leave you way out in left field."

Licking his lips, Grissom placed his hands back on the steering wheel and gripped hard, staring out into the people walking along the Strip. "Know what I mean?" she prodded.

He said nothing, though he wanted to hang his head in a mixture of fear and shame. Grissom thought of the care and time it would take to cultivate a relationship, of the actual work it would take to rebuild what they had lost. And he thought about how she was trying, and how he had vowed to give it a shot. He remembered that he had made a promise to the both of them.

And then it was all clear, all very, intensely clear. He couldn't promise that he wouldn't get bogged down in doubt again, that he wouldn't take a moment to pause and take stock of it all, but he did know one thing. "Look, I'm hungry, let me buy you breakfast."

Grissom watched as her entire frame relaxed ad she shifted down in the seat. "That… sounds like an excellent idea."

Almost as an afterthought, she said, "And we'll call this the start."


	6. Chapter 6

_Thanks to my oregano and cinnamon loving lover. Also, thanks to keeping with this guys. You have STAMINA. Meet me in the bedroom, stat.

* * *

_ Two dates worth of powdery pancakes and watery orange juice had them slightly more comfortable in the other's presence, but not entirely. Sara had come to find that he didn't like maple syrup, and Grissom discovered that Sara did... a lot. The cakes were nearly swimming in the dish as Sara allowed them to soak, to marinade before she brought them to her mouth.

Grissom watched her eat with a mixture of amusement and shock, the syrup dripping from the fork onto her chin. She had wiped it away with a laugh and a shrug and had kept on eating.

The image of her licking the sugary confection from the lucky tines of her fork had his face raging hot. When she had smiled, her lips had shined bright in the early morning sun, the syrup still clinging to her mouth. A thousand thoughts had raged through his mind: to reach across the table and dab at the corner of her mouth with the pad of his thumb, to kiss it off, to ask her to suck it off herself... god, anything so he didn't have to look at it any longer.

But both times they had looked away from each other quickly, nervously, before making an attempt to meet the other's eyes again. Each time Grissom had paid the bill, a measly twenty dollars, and had driven her home; leaving her with a light, meaningful goodbye.

On the third Wednesday in May he decided to take her out for a drink and was stunned when she met him at his car, clad in a lower-cut-than-normal top and a pair of fairly tight brown slacks. She looked more as if she belonged in Manhattan than Las Vegas.

It was just about evening when she peeked through the passenger window and opened the door, and the way the cooling light highlighted her bright eyes made him all the more sure that tonight was the night.

He might have watched her ass as she climbed into his car and he might have wondered how it would feel molded in his palms, but he made no outward expression of that particular fantasy. "Hey," she said breathlessly, pressing the hair out of her eyes. He was glancing at her in a strange manner, his face a mask of stoicism, so she smiled, a little flirt of a thing and asked, "What?"

Beautifully, strikingly disheveled. If she was anything she was a hurricane, a strong gust of everything that shocked him, teased him and could just as easily destroy him. "Nothing," came his response, he too slightly breathless, simply from the astonishment of looking at her.

Confused and more than a bit amused, she huffed one chuckle and settled herself down in the seat. Smoothing her hands over her pants, Sara sighed, licked her lips, and settled her clasped hands in her lap. "Where to?"

"I don't know the name of it," he said, amused with himself more than embarrassed. "I've gone there with Jim a few times." He pulled onto the Strip, rolling the car to a stop in the mid-evening traffic. The windows were down, a slight, warm breeze flowing through to ruffle her hair. "It's nice this evening."

"Mmm," she agreed, gazing out the window at the neighboring cars. "It is."

"You look amazing," he mumbled quickly before he forgot that such a compliment was warranted. Face still utterly stoic, though his eyes were fixed on hers as she turned from her gazing game to greet him head on. He didn't look away; neither did she.

Her hands unclasped and smoothed over her pants once more, wiping the sweat from them. "Excuse me?"

"I said, 'You look amazing,'" he reasserted and inched the car forward a few feet, his eyes leaving hers for only a few seconds. "Because you do."

"Oh." She swallowed, "Thank you."

With a tilt of his head and a flick of his lips he replied, "You're very welcome," and turned back to look out the windshield before them. When his eyes were forward his smile bloomed to completion and though she was pretending to look out the window once more, she caught it, and the sight had her hiding her own grin.

A while later, after a few stolen glances and more comments on the loveliness of the evening, Grissom steered the car into the garage of the Bellagio, parking on the top level. He didn't open her door for her; he'd wanted to, intended to, but she beat him to it, hopping from the car to join him on his side of the vehicle.

Grissom laughed at her, shook his head, and waited for her to slip her arm through his. She did so with a little jostle of her hip and they fell in step with each other, walking through the glass doors briskly.

They reached the bar after long minutes of leisurely walking and Grissom steered them to a high-backed, secluded booth over on the side, away from the gaggle of tourists hanging around the bar itself. Holding out a hand to indicate for her to sit, she slid past him and settled down in the booth, feeling a warm tingle up her side when he slid in right next to her.

They wouldn't be able to look at each other very easily in that position, but the warmth of his thigh touching hers made it hard to think of much of anything. Her forearms slid onto the cool table and she rested her head on one palm, turning to glance at him. "So, this is nice."

Grissom smiled at her and rested his folded hands on the table. His shoulders didn't have the set they usually did, that distinct stoniness; tonight they were relaxed, as was the rest of his body. Sara admired his form for a moment, the dark blue polo shirt he'd changed into on top of a pair of pressed chinos. Grissom looked poised, like he was ready for a date, and while it was nice to see him like that, she'd have been just as happy to sit next to him on worn leather and watch an old movie with his _denim_ clad thigh pressed against hers.

"You look nice," she told him, "Different."

Grissom dipped his head, a ghost of a nod. "Thank you."

A waiter meandered over to their table and Grissom had Sara order for them. She asked for two dirty martinis and the woman disappeared, leaving them alone once more. "It's been a while since I've done this," Grissom mentioned, his palms going flat on the table.

"What? Taking someone on a date?" Sara asked, tapping an index finger casually on the hard surface.

Grissom snatched her restless hand off the table and laced his fingers through hers. "No, I've done that a few times with you already, in case you haven't noticed."

"So…?" she mused, squeezing his hand, finding the sensation of holding a part of him with a part of her to be very welcome. Sara admired his nails, the way they were rough and clean and for a second wondered how they'd feel scratching against her scalp.

"So, I haven't taken a woman for drinks in…" He didn't want to say years because he'd sound old, but he didn't know how to end the sentence without sounding just that.

Sara saved him from having to say a thing. "Well no one's taken me for drinks in a good while, so we're on the same page."

Grissom smiled and studied their hands, just as Sara had. Her nails were cropped short, but were healthy, the type that didn't need polish to define them. Long, lean, strong digits that wrapped around his own with a sort of feminine possession that mystified him. "I… suppose we are," he agreed as two martinis were placed before them.

Their hands separated, and while she didn't miss the warmth, the tingle of cool air on her palm felt a bit strange. Bringing the drink to her lips, she sipped, the vodka stinging the inside of her mouth for a fraction of a second before she let it slide down her throat, smiling once it was swallowed. He smiled at her after taking a rather large swallow of his drink and brought their hands together again.

Two of her fingers pressed down on the base of the glass and drew it back and forth across the table, producing a dull, scratching noise. Grissom watched it move for a few seconds before whispering in her ear, "Stop."

She did, and her hand fell to her lap as she turned her head to look up at him. "I'm nervous too," he assured her; just before he leaned down to kiss her collarbone. "Now… I'm even more nervous."

Sara's skin broke out in a flush and she blushed, dropping her head to expose her neck. Grissom leaned in and placed a kiss there too, "I'm working through it though," he added, bringing their hands to rest on his thigh.

"You are," came her faltering as she lifted her head to gaze at him. "And it's appreciated more than you know." There was both humor and heartfelt-gratitude in the curl of her voice, and it made him soften even more.

"That's good to know," he returned, sipping on his drink. "Now, tell me about your brother…"

Sara smiled and turned to begin her story.


	7. Chapter 7

_Thanks to all of you for reading; thanks to Anni and Lauren for the beta.

* * *

_ The first time he saw Sara Sidle, he didn't know who she was. She was sprawled rather unceremoniously beneath a large maple tree in a terrible tie-dye shirt. . Really, she stretched forever and he wondered how tall she was, just to wonder.

She had a ripe, large dandelion between her fingers. Spinning it slowly, in time with the breeze, her head was buried in a book. The book was tattered and just to humor his inquisitive mind, he wondered if she had made it that way or if it was a borrowed book. Too old to be a student and too young to be a professor, she intrigued him. He glanced at her once, twice and then mounted the stairs to the lecture hall.

He turned back; she was mouthing something, still twirling that dandelion, interested in nothing but the text before her.

The younger Gil Grissom smiled and pressed through the door.

For some reason, he wasn't at all surprised when she had seated herself right before him, all business, that yellow weed tucked between the pages of her text. A thumbnail between her teeth and eyes focused on an anonymous page, he found himself even more captured.

When she asked her first question he was lost; though he didn't know it, he was at the exposition of the long road on which he would take to fall ever-completely in love.

The second sighting was on a last-minute consultation on the Bay. The decomp was particularly bad, piquing even his scent receptors. Dank and dreary, rain pelted his head as he stepped from the overpriced rental car onto the crumbling gravel.

She was looking down at a clipboard, a slicker's hood obscuring her vision. "All we know is the vic's female, more insect activity than we know how-"

Brown met cloudy gray and she smiled wider than he'd seen in ages. "Gil!" He liked to think that if she hadn't had a clipboard in her hands she would have thrown her arms around him in a manner of greeting. The young woman filled him in on all of the pertinent information of the case, leaving gaps where she knew he would expand upon.

They kissed for the first time that evening, something sloppy and impromptu with many other people looking on. They laughed afterwards with his arm around her shoulder, holding her gently against his side. They laughed, laughed like the kiss had meant nothing.

And he brought her back to his hotel room like she had meant something. She had meant something up to the moment he had brought his lips almost to hers and then had pulled abruptly away. There was coffee and discussion and arguments and brushing of hands. There had been cowardice on his part. There had been a shared sense of being overwhelmed when they said goodnight, when neither one could bring themselves to part with a kiss.

The third time they'd laid eyes on the other she'd been hideous and he'd been too old. The heat didn't agree with her and science just barely agreed with him. Test dummies under blaspheming Vegas sun; when she pulled off her sunglass he remembered all the reasons he wanted her. But he also reminded himself of all the reasons it would be terribly wrong.

She was from the Bay and couldn't take the heat.

Hows and whys and he'd been floored to find that she'd become even skinnier. Was it because of him? He'd had no time to dissect because she was quick to jump to science and rational. A safe place.

That was when the tables turned. He began folding in upon himself and she began to blossom.

The way he saw Sara now was entirely different. She was blue; the light pushing through his drapes was draped across her body, giving her an ethereal glow. It was only an hour before that she had fallen asleep after pressing her lips to his once more and turning away.

Two martinis hadn't been enough to render either one of them inebriated and that he was glad for. Grissom was reassured to know that she was sober and happy when he took her to bed, gently plying her with slick kisses and whispered words of affection.

The second his fingers had touched the skin which lay beneath her clothes, she'd become a silhouette of herself;

Sara moved so fast, moaned so loud, cursed so profusely that he wondered if he'd be able to keep up with her. Lips attacked his neck, his cheek, ear, nose, stomach and then he too was moaning just as loudly as she was.

She was skinnier than he had realized, though her skin was softer than he'd ever imagined; he was wider that she had taken notice of, but he was more romantic and attentive than she ever thought possible.

Foreplay had dragged on for nearly an hour; when he'd moved to enter her he was shocked at how slick, how tight, how perfect she felt. At that moment she'd surprised him with "Ohohohshitnevergoingbackeverrrrrr..." and had kissed him harder than she had previous.

That was when Grissom found himself drowning and he didn't much care, because Sara was drowning too.

He leaned back on one arm and peeled the sheet down her back and let it rest at her hip. There was perfection in the line of her spine, and he allowed his eyes to linger on the dip just above her ass. Slowly, he traced the notches beneath the skin with index and middle finger, listening to her sigh in her sleep as he did so.

His ears lingered on the sound of her breathing and wondered what kind of peace he was wading through. Turning his hand, he allowed his fingernails to trace down her spine; once reaching her bottom he traced back upwards with his fingertips. There was a slick hiss as his nails dragged down her skin and he closed his eyes, listening to her breathing hitch, feeling her press back into his touch.

Stilling for a moment, she took in her surroundings, the quiet of the morning. She was awaking to morning and to Grissom and it was intensely odd, confusing and fantastic. A yawn escaped her throat and she turned onto her back; no point in staving off the inevitable confrontation and awkward silence that accompanied sleeping together.

But what she was met with was not at all what she expected. A tender mask had seeped into his face and he lay there simply watching her. When she quirked a brow he allowed a lazy smile to touch his lip and his right hand to tuck a piece of hair behind her ear. "You make a wonderful bedfellow," he breathed and leaned back to watch her some more.

Sara smirked and sank into the pillow with a dramatic heave. "I was supposed to make this hard for you," she whined and pressed her hands over her eyes.

"You did make it hard," he quipped, the smile he wore on his face dripping from his lewd words. One of Sara's hands pulled away and smacked him on the arm and he laughed, reaching out quickly to grab it and kiss her wrist. "But seriously, this is going to make things monumentally more difficult for me..."

Sara peeled her other hand away and glanced at him from her position on the pillow. "What do you mean?"

"Hmmm," he hummed, settling himself back down on the bed and laying so that they were face to face. "Not touching you when I want to, keeping thoughts of you like this out of my head... things like that." A hand snaked to her hip beneath the sheet.

"Things like that, huh?" She leaned in and kissed him delicately, turning it sloppy when they both began to laugh. Her top lip remained pressed to his bottom one as she slid away, back to the pillow. "Things like that..." she sighed and closed her eyes, drawing the sheet up over her shoulder. "Mmmm, but I gotta get up soon if I'm going to make it to my book club meeting." Sara shoved the sheet off of her, exposing her bare chest and stomach.

Grissom leaned in with a grin, "You can be late." He pecked her shoulder and Sara fell back onto the bed.

Sara squirmed, "No, no I can't be late."

Chuckling, he placed a kiss on her exposed throat. "Sure you can," he goaded, leaning onto her lightly.

Sara sighed and allowed her fingers to twine in the damp hair of his nape, "Sure I can," and she gave in, just like that.


End file.
